


i had a night (i had a day)

by rufeepeach



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: First Kiss, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Love Confessions, M/M, The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens), and discussions thereof, ended bc a snake got drunk and an angel got philosophical, show canon, six thousand year slow burn, they're on their own side now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 12:03:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19228780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rufeepeach/pseuds/rufeepeach
Summary: “You said something, back in Tadfield, while we were waiting for the bus,” Aziraphale says. “It’s been rattling about in my mind ever since.”“If you’re talking about the invite back to my place, that was a shameless ploy to get you to clean up the holy water and what was left of Ligur,” Crowley says.It’s a lie – Crowley had been as surprised as anyone to rediscover the remains of his former colleague on the floor of his flat, the night the world didn’t end. What it had been, Aziraphale is sure, was an unsubtle way to say ‘please don’t leave me alone’, a sentiment Aziraphale more than shares. He never intends to leave Crowley alone ever again, if he can help it. He’s had more than enough of that for one eternal lifetime.“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m talking about something else. You suggested that everything, our prevention of Armageddon included, was perhaps part of the Ineffable Plan.”





	i had a night (i had a day)

“You know, at the end of it all, I came to a rather startling conclusion.” 

Crowley’s head rolls to one side, and one eyebrow arches over his sunglasses. Aziraphale wishes he would take those off while indoors; it always seems like one more barrier to understanding between them, an unnecessary wall in place.

After another rather lovely dinner at a relatively new and very charming French restaurant near Covent Garden, it had felt natural to return to Aziraphale’s flat above the restored bookshop for a nightcap. Such has been the way of things for a few weeks now, ever since Armageddon was averted and their relative head offices apparently retreated. Aziraphale had been fortunate to see Crowley once or twice a month, before: now, it is a daily occurrence. It feels natural; no one has felt the need to comment.

Crowley sprawls on the sofa and Aziraphale takes his comfy chair by the fire, and the coffee table between them fills with bottles of wine, mugs of hot cocoa, snifters of brandy, whatever takes their fancy tonight.

And yet, despite their being practically joined at the hip these days, unwilling or perhaps unable to let go after their brush with the unspeakable loss of one another, those damned sunglasses remain even in this warm, dark, private place. Aziraphale has no idea why: he’s very familiar with Crowley’s snake eyes, has been since the literal dawn of creation, and he’s always found them rather lovely, all things considered.

Crowley lowers the wine bottle from his lips, and swallows an ungodly gulp.

“Oh?” Crowley says. “And what have you concluded?”

“I still have _faith_ ,” Aziraphale can feel the smile that bursts across his face, the stupid happiness that accompanies the declaration: hopeful, _wonderful_.

Crowley frowns, not getting it. Aziraphale can sense the doubt as it slithers into Crowley, that endless worry that he hopes someday – perhaps in another thousand years or so – he can eradicate entirely. “In… in what? Heaven? They tried to burn you alive, angel, I’m not sure they’ll take your call.”

“Oh, no, no no, of course not!” Aziraphale waves a hand, brushing the ridiculous notion aside and with it the entire concept of Heaven: Gabriel, Michael, Head Office, the whole shebang. “Heaven can hang!” 

“Quite right too!” Crowley salutes with his wine bottle, and goes back to swigging directly from it, uncouth fiend that he is. He does it just to wind Aziraphale up, and Aziraphale refuses to rise to the bait.

“But… but in something _above_ Heaven,” Aziraphale continues, cautiously, gauging Crowley’s reaction. He imagines his eyes narrowing, although all he has to go by are lowered eyebrows and a furrowed brow. “In… In _Her_.”

“Right,” Crowley hums, noncommittal. “You’re gonna have to explain that one to me, angel. I’m not seeing the difference.”

“You said something, back in Tadfield, while we were waiting for the bus,” Aziraphale says. “It’s been rattling about in my mind ever since.”

“If you’re talking about the invite back to my place, that was a shameless ploy to get you to clean up the holy water and what was left of Ligur,” Crowley says.

It’s a lie – Crowley had been as surprised as anyone to rediscover the remains of his former colleague on the floor of his flat, the night the world didn’t end. What it had been, Aziraphale is sure, was an unsubtle way to say ‘please don’t leave me alone’, a sentiment Aziraphale more than shares. He never intends to leave Crowley alone ever again, if he can help it. He’s had more than enough of that for one eternal lifetime.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m talking about something else. You suggested that everything, our prevention of Armageddon included, was perhaps part of the Ineffable Plan.”

“I was just chatting bollocks, angel,” Crowley sighs, and oh Aziraphale does not enjoy the bitter edge to his tone, however familiar it is. There’s such sweetness and warmth in Crowley, and the bitterness is so firmly turned inward, that it breaks Aziraphale’s heart.

“No, I don’t think you were,” Aziraphale shakes his head. “In fact, I said something very similar at the air base, and I think we were both right.”

“What’s that then?”

“That the Grand Plan and the Ineffable Plan are in fact two _separate_ plans!” 

“Right.”

“Oh don’t give me that look!” Aziraphale scolds, a little wounded by Crowley’s ignorance, or his scepticism, or whatever it is that is making him look at Aziraphale like that. “Think about it, about everything that had to happen for us to still be here! Not only did _you_ have to be chosen to deliver the Antichrist, but you had to show up _right_ when the Youngs were already at the convent, and you had to be reluctant enough to want to get out of there as fast as possible, and you had to just _happen_ to run into the most incompetent nun in the whole building!”

“I was _chosen_ because I’d spent thousands of years taking credit for everything evil under the sun,” Crowley corrects, slurring a little. “It was my reward for… for _everything_.”

Aziraphale takes another sip from his wine glass. If anyone deserves a proverbial olive branch from faith itself, it’s Crowley. Crowley who had had doubts from the very beginning; Crowley who had been asking questions before mankind was a twinkle in the Almighty’s divine eye; Crowley who had reluctantly Fallen and still fought harder than anyone to save the world and everyone and everything in it.

“Alright, but suppose you had arrived at the convent and _any other nun_ had greeted you,” Aziraphale insists. “The baby would have been successfully placed with the Ambassador, and named Warlock, and we would have been-“

“Ham-fistedly shoving contradictory moral lessons down the _right_ boy’s throat for eleven years?” Crowley finishes for him. 

“Well, yes,” Aziraphale fiddles a little in his lap at that accurate but certainly unflattering portrait of their valiant efforts. “Quite.”

“So you still have faith in the Almighty because of what? Lucky incompetence?”

“ _Very_ lucky incompetence,” Aziraphale corrects. “ _Remarkably_ lucky, in fact: lucky that the Youngs are good and kind people from a good and kind place; lucky that Adam grew up with strong-willed and happy playmates; lucky that the last witch burned in England wrote down her prophecies, and that her descendants maintained the only book in existence, and that her ultimate great-granddaughter was in _exactly_ the right place at _exactly_ the right time to collide with your Bentley, and that she left that one book in the backseat, and that I happened to find it.”

“That… is a lot of luck, yeah,” Crowley concedes.

He rolls his head back, his long limbs splayed, wine bottle all but dripping from his slender fingers. Aziraphale allows just a moment of pause – _allows_ , because he could not prevent it, because he cannot help it, he can _never_ help it – to admire him in all his louche, careworn beauty. He allows himself to marvel that somehow, against all the odds, Crowley is here with him after the end of the world. In this rare unguarded moment, sprawled on his sofa as if nothing had happened, Aziraphale thinks Crowley might be more beautiful even than Mozart, or sushi, or a perfect 1922 Châteauneuf-du-Pape: certainly worth preserving the world for. The thought of eternity without Crowley doesn’t bear contemplation.

He swallows that thought down with another sip of his wine. Of course Crowley is beautiful – he is the original temptation, it would hardly work if he weren’t easy on the eye. Aziraphale isn’t sure that was really the point of that stray thought, however. He’s never been sure that beauty begins and ends with physicality.

“It’s not luck,” Aziraphale presses, instead of voicing a word of what passed through his half-drunk mind. Not luck, because to think that their being here now, safe and happy and _together_ , is the product of a string of random fortune is too terrifying to dwell on. “It’s the Plan.”

“Oh don’t start,” Crowley moans. “This the Great Plan or the Ineffable Plan?”

“The Ineffable Plan,” Aziraphale clarifies.

“But you spoke to the Metatron, didn’t you?” Crowley frowns, looking at Aziraphale, confused. “I thought he said that She wanted the war to go ahead.”

“Yes, I’ve given that some thought,” Aziraphale replies. “And I’ve come to the conclusion that in order for the Ineffable Plan to succeed, I had to be convinced we were on our own.”

“Right, assuming the Ineffable Plan wasn’t just to end the world, like everyone including Satan himself and the Archangel-fucking-Gabriel assumed,” Crowley nods, sarcasm rolling off him. Aziraphale rolls his eyes. Crowley is always at his most dismissive and biting when he feels threatened.

“Right, _assumed_ ,” Aziraphale presses. “An _assumption_ is not necessarily correct.”

“So you think the Metatron lied to you?”

The question is sharper, and carries with it the weight of a heavier question, a broader question, the question of why when Crowley was at his most lonely, vulnerable, and frightened, Aziraphale was seeking guidance from his higher-ups rather than fighting beside his best friend. Why, when given the chance to choose a side, Aziraphale had not immediately chosen him. 

“I think the Metatron… gave an inaccurate impression of the Almighty’s true purpose,” Aziraphale says, carefully. “I believe so, anyway.”

“ _Believe_ ,” Crowley nods. “This where the faith comes in, yeah?”

Aziraphale swallows hard, his throat suddenly dry, the wine not necessarily helping but welcome nonetheless. This new body is identical to his old form, and yet… and yet. Not. Not quite. More human, perhaps, maybe just because it’s younger, it has a tendency to race its heart and dry its throat, to adrenaline spikes, to panic, to physical response. It’s hard work. He’s still working out the kinks. 

There’s a long silence. Crowley sinks deeper into Aziraphale’s couch. Aziraphale clenches his hands in his lap, both wishing he had chosen the seat beside Crowley – the distance between them suddenly looms, a cavern as broad as the gap between Heaven and Hell – and thankful for the relative safety of his armchair. The look on Crowley’s face is unreadable, and yet Aziraphale _can_ read him, and he knows it isn’t good.

The silence stretches. Aziraphale’s oh-so-young heart starts to beat. He wishes he were one to pace. He wishes someone, anyone, would say anything.

“Why’d you do it?” Crowley asks, at last, the question Aziraphale is certain he’s been burning to ask for weeks now, the proverbial elephant in the room.

“Do what?” Aziraphale’s cowardice, as always, gets the better of him. He won’t answer the question until it is asked, in case he’s gotten it wrong, in case he ends up saying more than he has to. 

“You know what,” Crowley sighs. “C’mon, angel.”

“No I do not know _what_!” Aziraphale lies, panicked, maybe he’s lying, he hopes he’s not lying. He doesn’t know, technically, but he can make an educated guess.

“Why’d you walk away?” Crowley demands. His posture hasn’t changed, lithe body still spread out across the couch, easy as you like, but his tone is serious and a touch angry and a touch more hurt, although Aziraphale is sure that last part Crowley hopes he’s hiding. It hurts him, nonetheless, pokes at that shameful bruise under his ribs, the knowledge that in six thousand years he’s never made a worse mistake. “In the park, at the bandstand, you knew I was right and you ended up agreeing with me anyway so why’d you suddenly run away?”

Aziraphale sighs. He’d been right. He had known what Crowley meant. 

The unspoken fact of their togetherness, the fact they’re barely apart for more than a day at a time, the lunches and dinners and walks together, has all come at the price of Aziraphale’s shame that he didn’t get here sooner.

_“You go too fast for me, Crowley.”_

Crowley has been waiting for decades, centuries, longer, for them to be on the same side, their own side. And yet, it took until the literal eleventh hour for Aziraphale to finally join him there.

“I… I was lost,” he says, at last. Crowley hums softly, but doesn’t comment. Aziraphale looks down, at his hands, fiddles, shuffles, cannot meet the gaze that pierces from behind Crowley’s sunglasses. “My faith was… shaken. Not in Heaven, I… I mean I knew what they were, who they were, I think I’d always known. They wanted their war and they would have it. But I had hoped… I mean, I _believed_ they were misguided. I thought if I could make the Almighty understand that it was more complicated, that there were… shades of grey. That maybe then…” He trails off, stops, thinks, recalibrates. He knows what he needs to say. It’s the reason he started this conversation, if he’s honest with himself.

He cannot form the words. They die in his throat, too heavy for such a delicate balance.

“Maybe then what? They’d all become pacifists overnight?” Crowley’s trying for biting, but he doesn’t succeed, it just comes out with that soft, sad sympathy Aziraphale has always adored in him. The tone of one who could see the lie all along, and yet is saddened by another’s disillusionment. For a demon, Crowley has a notable, admirable lack of schadenfreude.

Aziraphale doesn’t doubt that there was a time, before the Fall, when Crowley had been as Aziraphale is now. Crowley had just learned to question sooner, lost his innocence sooner, thought for himself quicker. He’d gotten there faster, like he always did, and it had taken over six millennia for Aziraphale to begin to catch up.

“That maybe then it would all be alright,” Aziraphale murmured, ashamed of his own naiveté, embarrassed at such a childish thought. “I thought She might… understand. And then there would be no need for sides, or for the war, and the world could spin on.”

“That would have been lovely,” Crowley agrees. “Shame She’s as bloodthirsty as the rest of them.”

“But that’s exactly my point!” Aziraphale exclaims. “Had I… had I agreed with you, we would have left together, yes? Leaving the world to rot. Or perhaps we would have stayed to fight, but that fight would have involved killing Adam, which we may or may not have been able to do, and had we done it would not have allowed the world to be restored after Armageddon was averted, and had we failed he would never have trusted us.”

“We almost did that anyway,” Crowley notes, his voice bitter as ash. They are in agreement there: the memory of the split second staring down the barrel of that oversized gun, of Adam’s curly head in his sights, of pulling the trigger… well, it doesn’t bear remembering, really. 

“But we didn’t! We failed again!” Aziraphale’s smile is back; he slaps his thigh for emphasis. “Because the portal stayed open, so Sergeant Shadwell turned up uninvited, so I was discorporated, so I had to take that witch’s body, and so she stopped me. If I had been in my own body… well…”

He trails off again. His too-young stomach flips at the thought of what he might have, what he almost, what he _intended_ to do. To a child. An innocent. A human boy who had already chosen to save the world rather than end and rule it.

“Well,” Crowley agrees, his voice heavy. “For the record, I wasn’t happy about it either.”

“You made a good argument,” Aziraphale weakly tries to comfort them both. “You know, the world versus one child.”

“Yeah but that was when it was Warlock, and he was such an arsehole,” Crowley waves a hand, as if it matters at all who the child was. “And it was never about the world, anyway,” Crowley continues. “I mean not entirely. Not really.”

“Oh?” It is Aziraphale’s turn to frown, perplexed.

Crowley’s head is rolled back, eyes back on the ceiling, casual and relaxed and oh-so-cool when in fact the universe rests on his words. “Decision came down to your life or his,” he shrugs. “Didn’t even have to think about it.”

Aziraphale swallows. His heart, treacherous newborn organ that it is, starts to pound. “Oh.”

It warrants an answer. He knows that. He’s always known that. How many times have they been here, Crowley reaching out, opening up, seeking reciprocity, Aziraphale reaching back only to falter and retreat and withdraw, cowardice masked as righteousness, hiding behind sides, behind us-and-them, behind orders? How many times has he failed, and yet Crowley continues to try, nonetheless, hopeful to the last.

He can’t find the words, and the silence stretches, and Crowley gets restless, he knows this dance as well as Aziraphale and is too weary to expect the answer he deserves.

“More wine, angel?” he asks, casual and cool, as he stands to fetch a bottle he could have easily summoned from the sofa, and paces across the room to find a corkscrew he certainly doesn’t need. 

“I put my faith in all the wrong places,” Aziraphale blurts, forcing himself through this, gritting his teeth through the panic crawling up his spine, although every instinct screams to be quiet, to pull back, to run, to shut this down now before it can go any further.

It’s easier now that Crowley is facing away, and he wonders if that was Crowley’s intention, or whether this displacement activity is entirely for the demon’s own benefit. He continues: “Although I believe my doubt was part of Her Ineffable Plan… that doesn’t mean I was right. It means my wrongness was essential, but that’s altogether different. Many things were, are, will continue to be essential to the Plan, but that doesn’t make all of them _right_.” 

Crowley is silent, fiddling with the wine, his shoulders tense, eyes down. Aziraphale wishes now that they were sat side-by-side, that this distance could be closed, but he is rooted to his seat and he cannot muster the strength to move. Everything he has is going into pushing these essential words out of his resistant mouth. His small living room has never felt so vast.

“What I mean to say is that… well, all along I shouldn’t have cared for Heaven, or Gabriel, or even the Almighty, Ineffable Plan or no. From the start, well, I should have put my faith in… you.”

Crowley stills. He does not respond.

“C-Crowley?”

Silence. Aching, awful, silence.

“Oh Crowley do _say_ something!” Aziraphale cannot handle this quiet, not now, not from Crowley. They’ve always, always been able to talk to one another, and just as he needs Crowley’s effortless ability to fill any silence, with his probing questions and his sharp remarks and his intellect, he goes _silent_! “You were right, alright? We ought to have been our own side, and whether or not I was capable of accepting when you offered you were owed… well, better, anyway, than what I gave you. I betrayed you and I’m so very, deeply, _terribly_ sorry.” 

“You said you didn’t like me,” Crowley reminds him, finally turning to face him, and the shame hits like a punch to the stomach. 

Aziraphale rises to his feet, on instinct, unnecessary, and meets Crowley at the end of the coffee table. He takes his wine, letting Crowley put the bottle on the coffee table, fiddling, fussing, not wanting to sit, not wanting the distance back, not wanting to commit to sitting together as if that isn’t what this whole conversation, at its heart, is _about_.

“I… I was scared,” Aziraphale admits, in for a penny in for a pound, true honesty not being something one can provide in moderation then retreat. Heaven has shown its cards. There is no more risk to openness, no more excuse to pull away.

“Understandable,” Crowley nods, and Aziraphale wishes he weren’t wearing those bloody sunglasses, because if he’s going to spill his heart out then for God’s sake he will at least see Crowley’s eyes while he does it! “The punishment was hellfire, after all. I was there.”

“I wasn’t… I wasn’t scared of that,” Aziraphale admits. Then, helplessly, scolds: “Oh do take off your glasses, Crowley!”

He’s certain Crowley rolled his snake eyes, if that were possible, but he cannot see them until a moment later, when the glasses are in Crowley’s pocket and his full face is revealed. “Better, angel?”

“Much,” Aziraphale sighs, happy, delighted, smiling, _God_ , it’s ridiculous how Crowley’s proximity can bring a smile to his face even in such a difficult, tense moment. He’s grateful for the slight crack in the tension, too, for a moment to breathe.

“You’re braver than I am, then,” Crowley murmurs, returning to their previous topic. “I’ve been terrified of what Hell might do if they caught on for centuries.”

“I mean, I _was_ scared of the hellfire,” Aziraphale corrects himself. “But… not _only_ that.”

“Gabriel’s withering stare?” Crowley suggests, lightly. “A promotion back to head office, away from your books and your sushi? Being forced onto harp duty for a few centuries?”

Aziraphale fights the smile threatening to spread across his face. “Oh do be serious,” he mutters instead. “I was scared that… that you were right. And of what it would _mean_ that you were right.”

“I _was_ right,” Crowley reminds him. “And the world did not, in fact, end, which _proves_ I was right.”

He hasn’t returned to his seat. They’re standing a little awkwardly, just a little too close, wine glasses held between them.

“Yes, but you had _been_ right for some time,” Aziraphale replies. “Since at least the fifteen-hundreds, possibly since the Garden. We had been our own side since well before the Antichrist’s birth, I was just… well, I had always been too scared to admit it.”

Crowley thinks about that. Aziraphale watches the emotion play over his expressive face, his lips pursing then relaxing, thoughtfulness, confusion, a little sadness, a little anger, his head bowed, his snake-eyes unreadable.

Aziraphale nearly jumps out of his skin when something touches his free hand: Crowley’s fingers, tangling with his. They’ve never held hands like this before: never in private, never in the warm semi-dark of his lamp-lit sitting room, never without a good reason.

“Angel, I-“ 

“And that has always been terrifying, because…” he rushes on, his eyes on their hands and his lips loosened by the rush of warmth through his whole body at the contact, so much more potent than mere alcohol. “Well, because if that were true, that you were _integral_ to me, then I’d have to admit to being scared of _losing_ you. Much safer to stay loyal to Heaven, and pretend you gave a damn about Hell, and forget the whole idea.”

A breath, a pause, he could stop here, he could leave it here, this is enough, this is all Crowley needs to hear, but now the fight is to keep his mouth shut and stem the tide and he fails and: “Much easier to pretend I didn’t… love you.”

The silence now is deep, tense, but comfortable, like a heavy blanket, like the glow of a hearth, like love, but not celestial love, no, material love, personal love, love that grows in the warmth and the dark where nobody’s looking, that belongs only to those who feel it, that is possessive and generous and _earthly_ , neither blessed nor damned. Aziraphale doesn’t need to breathe, and yet he finds his lungs constrict anyway, as he waits for Crowley to say anything, anything at all.

“Oh, angel,” Crowley murmurs. That’s all he says, just that, and yet it’s everything. It’s like the first time, like on the garden wall, a release from doubt, a benediction from an unlikely corner, relief pouring through him. Then, like a snake in the Garden of Eden, doubt, sadness, _loss_ : “That’s what angels do, isn’t it? Love everything. Trust you to take it too far.” 

“What?” Aziraphale blinks, confused, trying to work out where in the name of the Almighty Crowley has gotten the message confused. “No, no, I don’t mean in an _angelic_ way. I mean like…” he can’t get his thoughts straight, all jumbled, and Crowley is so close and their hands are still all tangled up and blast it, Crowley has been literally inside his body, and he’s so clever, so why is he choosing this moment out of six thousand years of moments to be so _stupid_? “Oh _bugger this_." 

Aziraphale surges, half-falls, forward, and kisses him, full on the mouth. It takes his too-new brain a moment to catch up with what he is doing, and why, and how, and that he is _kissing Crowley_ , that Crowley has leaned instinctively toward him and is _kissing him back_. Then there are some rather ostentatious fireworks exploding behind his eyes, and a rich, syrupy warmth floods through Aziraphale at the sensation of Crowley’s soft, cool lips moving gently, lovingly against his, and that young heart of his pounds in his chest.

It’s a brief kiss, startled, inexperienced, chaste, over in a moment after what Aziraphale was coming to realise had been six thousand years of build-up. It is utterly remarkable.

He pulls back, and has the pleasure of watching Crowley’s eyes flicker open, dazed, confused.

“Like that!” Aziraphale says, decisively, triumphantly, his point proven. “There, I don’t kiss _everything_ like-mmph!”

He is cut off by Crowley slamming his mouth back against his, his eyes slamming closed a second too late, another kiss, deeper this time, overwhelming, Crowley’s lips caressing his, passionate. Two hands at his neck, one creeping into his hair, holding him closer, holding him still, and it is all Aziraphale can do to angle his head slightly and follow Crowley’s lead and let himself be kissed. If the first one had been fireworks, then this one is a forest fire, and he is happily, willingly consumed by it.

He lifts one hand to Crowley’s cheek, and just holds it there, gentle, his thumb stroking the sharp cheekbone. Crowley makes the most beautiful, intoxicating little noise in the back of his throat, and opens his mouth, and suddenly his soft tongue is stroking Aziraphale’s and he can’t help but gasp, the sensation at once wonderful and unbearable.

He pulls back a moment later, his head reeling. “You were saying, Aziraphale?”

Crowley says his name so rarely, only when his mask slips in times of great seriousness, and it’s a shame because it sounds inexplicably delicious in that low rumble of his. Aziraphale gathers his bearings as quickly as he can. “I was saying that I’ve never been all that good at that impersonal all-encompassing divine love, and what I feel for you… well, it’s always been really rather personal with us, hasn’t it?”

“Just a little, yeah,” Crowley murmurs. He's smiling; Aziraphale's heart stammers. “C’mere, angel.” His lips cover Aziraphale’s once more, and all thought is smothered in static, and belonging, and love, so powerful he’s amazed he hasn’t sensed it before.

He can’t get the thought out of his mind: the love rolling from Crowley in crashing, deafening waves, why had he never sensed it before? How could he possibly have been so blind to this? Now it’s smothering his senses, drowning out everything except for _Crowley_ and _I love you_ and _finally!_

They kiss for long moments, Crowley’s lips caressing and plucking at his, Crowley’s tongue licking and teasing at his, with far more skill than Aziraphale’s enthusiastic, unpractised fumbling can manage. He’s thankful Crowley seems to know what he’s doing, because Aziraphale’s hands have started to tremble, and it’s taking all his divine willpower to prevent his knees from buckling under him.

Crowley finally pulls away – well, he disengages his beautiful mouth from its even-more-beautiful activities to speak, but nothing else about his action could be described as ‘pulling away’, given that his hands remain firmly on Aziraphale’s neck, and not a sliver of daylight could have found its way between their bodies. But Crowley’s lips do pull back, and it gives Aziraphale just a moment of vague lucidity to process the colossal shift in the world around him.

“Is it going to sound disgustingly cliché if I say I’ve been waiting six thousand years to do that?” Crowley murmurs, a gorgeous smile tugging at his lips. There’s something so intoxicating about that attitude of his, breathtaking sincerity cloaked in a thick layer of swagger and charisma. The latter lends itself willingly to irony, which easily masks and distorts the former, and Aziraphale has been thoroughly remiss: he has used it as an escape far too many times.

“Oh, darling,” he sighs. Crowley’s eyes flick up to his, a sudden moment of aching vulnerability that clutches at Aziraphale’s heart. Oh yes, nothing divine and all encompassing about this: this is personal, this is earthly, this is, for lack of a better term, _human_. “I know you have.”

“ _Bollocks_ you knew,” Crowley snorts, rolling his eyes, fighting that genuine, beautiful, face-splitting grin Aziraphale adores, and failing miserably. “I’ve been _subtle_ , I’ve been _hiding it_ , remarkably well, I would add. You just can’t admit that I fooled you this long.”

Aziraphale’s jaw drops. He sputters, half-laughter, half-astonishment, a sprinkling of genuine offence, which is entirely the response Crowley was looking for, he supposes. He kisses Crowley again, surprising him, then pulls back to cry: “I beg your pardon! You have _not_ been subtle: you have been painfully obvious! I’ve just been… well, a coward I suppose.”

“You can _literally_ sense love and you can’t lie to save the world and yet you’re telling me you knew this entire time and just… what? Pretended not to? Give me a break, angel.“

“Yes that’s exactly what I’m saying, if you’d give me a moment to think.” Aziraphale steps back, takes his wine glass, drinks, misses the heat and skittering spark of Crowley’s hands on him the moment they’re gone. The answer is obvious, now that his mind has been given a second to catch up.

He takes a seat on the sofa, bracing his trembling hands on his knees, gesturing for Crowley to follow. Crowley sprawls next to him – well, half on top of him really, one inch to the left and he’d be in Aziraphale’s lap, his long legs swung over Aziraphale’s knees, like an overgrown cat staking a claim. Aziraphale’s heart stutters again. “I’m not saying… I’m not _trying_ to say that I’ve been walking around for six millennia fully aware that… that this was a possibility.”

“Okay,” Crowley’s eyes narrow, confused again. He gives a lazy grin, his eyes gleaming, and oh, Aziraphale can barely think straight. “ _This_ , being…” Crowley leans forward, and presses a kiss to a sensitive place just below Aziraphale’s ear. Aziraphale’s eyes flutter just for just a moment, his skin tingling unbearably, wonderfully, under Crowley’s lips. “This sort of thing?”

“Yes… yes that sort of thing,” Aziraphale swallows. “This whole… our being _in love_ , business.”

“Yes,” Crowley all but purrs, another kiss, and then another, one arm slung over Aziraphale’s shoulder, Crowley’s tongue gently stroking the shell of his ear, and dear heaven above the sensations that’s causing through Aziraphale’s body are delicious, and addictive. His treacherous mind can come up with a thousand ways these sensations could be applied elsewhere, a thousand distinct and wonderful and entirely earthly ways to lose himself in Crowley, and none of them are an aid to concentration.

“You’re being terribly distracting here, darling. I’m trying to apologise for six thousand years of distance and-“ 

“And here I am,” Crowley’s grin is delicious against Aziraphale’s skin. “More interested in _closing_ that distance.”

“It’s interference!” Aziraphale squeaks, shudders, as Crowley nips at his earlobe, supernaturally sharp teeth soothed with a flick of his warm tongue. A hand has crept back into Aziraphale’s hair.

“That’s one word for it,” Crowley agrees, easily. “Doesn’t it feel good to be _interfered_ with?”

“No!” Aziraphale yelps, and Crowley pulls back as if he’s been burned, a hundred emotions flickering across his face. “No I mean, yes, yes it does, it feels quite remarkably good.”

“Oh,” Crowley’s smirk returns as quickly as it had left. He reclines back, just his long fingers still combing through Aziraphale’s hair. Aziraphale resists – then, purposely, _ceases_ to resist the urge to lean his head into Crowley’s hand, the sensation of his fingers lightly stroking and scratching his scalp simply too good to resist at all. “You were saying, angel?” Crowley prompts, generously, “Interference?” 

“The… the feeling of love,” Aziraphale explains, struggling to keep his thoughts in line, to keep his traitorous new body from arching against Crowley’s and losing itself in sensation. He always did have an issue with self-control, a terrible trait in an angel, although he thinks his hedonism probably something that draws him and Crowley together so he can’t regret it too much. “I… I’ve always been able to sense my own as well as anyone else’s. The bookshop has always felt terribly loved, and that’s because it’s my home.”

He turns his head, until he’s looking Crowley directly in the eye, and dear heaven above how did he miss it all this time? The sheer force of the open, naked emotion in those yellow eyes, how devoted, how loving, how longing… well, it’s quite breathtaking.

“I knew I loved you,” he says, softly. Crowley’s throat bobs, his hand clenching just a little, perfectly, against Aziraphale’s scalp. “I- it was easier, when I sensed it coming from you, to assume instead that it was all from me. Plausible deniability, you know? I knew but…”

“But you didn’t _want_ to know,” Crowley says, heavily. “I understand, angel. The risks for you were always higher… you can only Fall once after all.”

“It’s not an excuse,” Aziraphale insists. “It’s intended as an explanation, to elaborate on an apology. You were always right. We ought _always_ to have been our own side.”

Crowley nods. For once – for perhaps the first time in six thousand years – he seems truly at a loss for words.

“I love you,” Aziraphale says again. “In a way that has nothing to do with heaven, except perhaps as a metaphor for how I feel when I’m around you.” Crowley gives a delicious lopsided smile at that, and Aziraphale is sure – although perhaps he’s just projecting – that he can see the tinge of a blush on Crowley’s sharp cheekbones. “I am _in love_ with you, darling,” he murmurs, shifting closer, pulling so Crowley is almost entirely in his lap and he can press their foreheads together. “And I have been for a very long time.”

 “Took you long enough,” Crowley grumbles, and then ruins it by beaming. 

Aziraphale smiles, and returns his hand to where it belongs – holding Crowley’s cheek – and his mouth to where it belongs – kissing Crowley with reckless abandon, making up for lost time.

**Author's Note:**

> Come scream at me about these eternal husbands on Tumblr @rufeepeach


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